A 400 year old Memory
by Miknel-san
Summary: Oshizu remembers her past and an old friend that Rito reminds her of. [This is an 'origin one-shot' detailing Oshizu's life before her death.]


A/N: Hello fellow TLR fans, this is what I'd like to call an 'Origin One-Shot' story (see profile for definition).

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The rays of the morning sun sneak through the cracks of the curtain into the room, the room in question was like any other room of that time; a wooden floor, four walls and a ceiling. "Shizu wake-up, breakfast time. Shizu?" A motherly voice called from the other room.

Rising out of bed slowly with the covers over her head, "I'm up Momma." Shizu called out. She then removes the covers as she gives a yawn and a stretch. She then proceeds to get dressed in her white kimono and straitened her hair, after words she places two beige ribbons in her hair. Shizu exits her room and enters the living room, sitting at the foot high table was her mother; she looks much like her daughter just more mature, her hair slightly shorter and curly. She, like her daughter, was wearing a kimono but it was light blue in color. She's currently eating a small bowl of miso soup or was it just a bowl of boiled water with seasonings. "Morning Momma." Shizu greeted her mother as she sat down and began to eat her soup.

Looking at her daughter, "Morning Shizu, I'm sorry there isn't much to eat." She says sadly.

"I know Momma, but this drought can't last." Shizu says thankfully as she continues to eat what she was given. She just smiled at her daughter thinking how lucky she is to have her. "Momma?" Shizu says snapping her mother out of her thoughts.

"Yes Shizu." She says as she continues eating.

Looking down word Shizu asks, "When do you think Papa will return?"

Her mother had the same question on her mind, she sets her spoon down, "Hard to say, being out at sea he isn't exactly around the corner." She says a little worried.

"Right." Shizu says sadly still staring at her bowl as she remembers the day her father and the other men left to go out to sea to hunt for fish.

She finishes her bowl of soup as a knock on the door and a caring male voice was heard, "Shizu-chan, are you home?"

[Name pronounced as 'O-tear'] "Otire-kun! Momma, can I go hang out with Otire-kun?" Shizu asks her mother, eyes wide with her hands together as if she was praying.

She smiled at the pleading girl for a minute, "Go have fun, just be home before the sun sets." She told her daughter.

Shizu in turn jumped for joy, "Okay Momma." She then opens the door after she slipped on her sandals, "Morning Otire-kun." she says to the boy standing before her. He's about average height around 164.5 cm; he has light brown eyes and spiky dark orange hair. He's wearing a simple black kimono with dark gray lining on the sleeves and outer edge of his clothes, tied together with a navy blue sash, he's also wearing light brown leather gloves, attached to his left lays a wooden katana.

"Morning Shizu-chan." He says smiling. He then pulls out a purple sash, "Here Shizu-chan, I've sown up that rip in your sash." He then hands it to her.

She accepts her sash from him, "Thank you, you're the best Otire-kun." She then wraps it around her waist. She turns gesturing Otire to tie it for her.

"No problem, but how did you rip your sash anyway?" He asks as he ties it for her.

She turns back to him with a little blush, "Ha, ha about that..." She trails off and turns away in embarrassment.

"It doesn't matter, let's go." He says as he turns and starts walking down the dirt road.

"Okay." She says as she joins him.

As they walk through the village watching the few children at play, Shizu couldn't help but take side-glances at Otire. She felt as if she has butterflies in her stomach when she's around him and it's not the miso soup she just had.

As they continue walking a soccer ball stops right in front of Otire. "Hay Otire-san, do you mind?" The boy who kicked the ball asked waving. Otire kicked the ball back to its owner and he continued to play with his friends.

Otire and Shizu continue to walk; as they walked they passed a boy drawing in the dirt and then saw a girl staring up a tree crying. Shizu walks up to the girl and kneels, "What's wrong?" She asks concerned as she wipes the girls tears away.

Pointing up she says, "It's my cat, she climbed this tree and wont come down." In the tree on one of the lower branches was a white cat with black paws. "I tried climbing up, but I'm too small." She says sadly.

Otire then approaches the tree, "Don't worry miss, I'll get your cat down." He says as he climbs the tree.

Shizu and the girl could only watch as Otire climbed the tree. Shizu couldn't help but smile as she felt those butterflies fluttering inside her again. He's so kind and thoughtful, she thought as she watched him bring the little cat down. The little girl thanked him as he handed it to her, and then walked off.

Otire then noticed that Shizu was smiling at him, "What?" He asks.

Shizu shaking her head returns to reality, "It's nothing." She says trying to hide a blush.

They continue walking until they reach the edge of the village were it meets the forest; the forest, because of the drought, was less green and more brown with yellow patches of grass. Just outside of the forest was the schoolhouse, to which they just walk past and into the forest.

In the forest Shizu has this feeling that they are being watched, she in turn grabs Otire's arm for comfort after feeling his warmth she feels much safer. They continue walking until they hear a low howl. Otire gets ready to pull out his katana as Shizu hides behind him. They then see several pars of eyes staring at them, Otire pulls out his katana, "Stay behind me Shizu-chan." He says as he takes a fighting stands.

Emerging from the shadows, five savage-looking dogs appear in front of them; with mated fur sticking up, growling showing their teeth. They spread out eyeing the two humans, heads low ready to attack. Two on Otire's left, two on his right and one right in front of him. The two on the right charge in to strike, but Otire countered and sent them flying. Then the two on the left charged, he swung back and knocked them to the ground. The leader of the dogs was left and Otire swung his katana back and points it at the leader, gripping his katana tightly ready to strike. The head dog moved a bit faster and jumped ready to bite his head, but Otire blocks using his katana as the dog's jaws bite down on the wood. He then kicks the dog in the guts and sent it to a tree. He watched as it got up slowly, shaking a bit it looked at him and he saw in its eyes that it has been defeated. Hearing Shizu scream he turns around to see her on the ground against a tree as the other four move towards her. He moves in placing himself between them. Then the leader of the dogs howled, the four heard and headed back towards the deeper part of the forest but before the head dog follows his pack, it looked back at them one last time as if saying, 'this isn't over'.

After the dogs flee Otire helps Shizu to her feet, "You alright Shizu-chan?" He asks.

"Yes thank you, Otire-kun." She says a bit shaken. "That was scary."

"Yes," Otire looks in the direction the dogs ran, "They don't usually come out at this hour of the day, odd." Otire thinks of what might have provoked the dogs to attack them, but nothing seems likely. "Let's go before they come back." He says walking in the opposite direction with Shizu following.

They walk until they reach a log cabin in a clearing. "I still can't believe that you live all the way out here Otire-kun." Shizu says as they reach the door of the cabin. "Don't you get lonely?" She asks as they enter.

The inside of the cabin consisted of one room with four wooden pillars around a square fireplace in the center of the room, above the fireplace a cauldron, under the cauldron a blazing fire. Scattered across the ceiling lines and lines of string, attached to the string dried herbs and spices. "Sometimes." Otire answers as he steers the content of the cauldron. Moments later he hands her a cup with stem rising out the top. "Try this, Shizu-chan."

She blew the stem away and took a sip, the taste of the warm liquid invigorated her taste buds she felt as if she died and gone to heaven it was that good. "Oh Otire-kun, this has got to be your best tea yet." She says returning to earth.

"Thank you, I worked really hard on it. With the limited amount of herbs I have it wasn't easy." He says sheepishly scratching the back of his head. "Will you help me fill the tea-pots so we can deliver them to the elders around the village?" He asks gesturing her to the many teapots on the shelves.

Shizu smiled at him, "As always, I'm happy to help." She then grabs a teapot and fills it.

They spent most of the afternoon delivering the teapots to the elders and giving a cup to the children who ask if they can try it. By the time they got to Shizu's house with the last teapot, the sun was going down. "The day's over already, awe." Shizu says with a pout. She wanted so much to spend more time with Otire, but alas the sun has to move on.

"Don't worry Shizu-chan, we can hang out more tomorrow." Otire says as they stop at her door.

She turns to face him, "Yes, tomorrow's another day, a day to be with a friend." She turns to hide her blush. Oh how much she wanted to kiss him in the light of the setting sun, but she was to shy. Another time, when she gets the guts to make a move. "See you tomorrow Otire-kun." She says as she enters her home.

"See you tomorrow Shizu-chan." He says before turning away and began to walk home.

Later that night as the full moon rose high Shizu couldn't sleep as the day's events were in her thoughts. She got up and looking out the window looks up at the moon. She then notices a large pillar of light coming from the forest just before it dissipates. She was flabbergasted to say the least, but then she began to panic when she realized in what direction it came from, "Oh no, Otire-kun." She gets dressed and leaves her house. She ran through the village, past the schoolhouse and into the forest. She ran until she reached the clearing of Otire's cabin, but she stopped in her tracks when she saw that his cabin was no longer there only a circular imprint in the dirt was all that remained. "Otire-kun." She sobbed.

As she cried she heard several howls around her, looking around fearful of the owners she saw them only there were more of them this time. She did the only thing she could think of, she ran. She ran back through the forest and passed the schoolhouse, but she didn't get far as several dogs blocked her path home. Shizu then ran to the schoolhouse as more of the dogs chased her.

She entered closing the door behind her than locking it. She could still hear the dogs growling and clawing the door, so she went further into the school as she could. She found a room far enough that she couldn't hear the dogs any more, she relaxed only just after that she shivered. "It's cold in here." She then notices several sticks of the ground. Minutes later she has a small fire going and Shizu was sitting as close as she could to it to stay warm. Within an hour she was asleep, and as the hours passed the fire began to dim until it was just flickering. Then it grew larger turning blue just before it disappears taking with it the light and the warmth of the room.

Waking up in her warm bed in the house of Ryoko Mikado, Oshizu sits up and looks around the room, she sighs, "It was only a dream, but it seemed so real." She looks out the window at the moon, "Otire, that's his name. Tixor-sama was right they do have a few things in common." She smiles and lays back down going to sleep.

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A/N: Well that's it; you may have noticed I wrote this story a little differently then "TLR: Secrets", tell me what you all think of this style and if I should write my future stories this way "TLR: Secrets" is done. Credit goes to 'darkboy 18' for writing the fight scene, again thank you.


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